Crockpot Lean Pork Roast July 11, 2011

I have some big plans for my future. I can’t tell you what they are yet, only that I could use some prayers, thoughts, etc for the next several months. I’ll let you guys in to my secret as soon as I know what’s going to happen!

Part of this new plan is to lose weight. I need to lose 10 pounds at first, but want to lose 20 altogether. I started this plan Tuesday, and I’ve already lost 5 pounds!

I’m doing the Slimfast 123 plan, which is working really well. I’m doing a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, a slimfast shake at lunch, and some kind of meal in the evening. I usually stick a slimfast bar in there somewhere as a snack.

My biggest struggle with this diet is the variety. It’s a LOT of sweets during the day, and I’ve never been a HUGE sweets person. Occasionally yes, but I much prefer more savory foods. By the time I get home at night, I crave real protein. So yesterday I decided to braise a lean pork shoulder so that I could have some good things in the evening. This recipe is more of a how-to than anything. there isn’t much to the marinade–just a few things to tenderize the meat and bring out the flavor of the pork. I’ll use the meat to make tacos, pulled pork sandwiches (on lowfat bread and with a vinegar based sauce instead of a heavier one), etc etc.

Crockpot Lean Pork Roast
Original Recipe

1 lean pork shoulder
1 can light beer
2 Tbsp Worcestershire
1 Tbsp mustard
1 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 Tbsp garlic salt
1 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp honey
1 large onion, quartered
Dry rub of your choice
1/4-1/2 cup red wine
2 cups chicken stock

Trim most of the fat off of the shoulder. It’s ok to leave some, it will keep the meat moist. But mine came with a good 1/2″ of fat on one side…that’s too much!

In a large plastic bag, combine all ingredients, excepting the pork and onions. Add the pork and marinate overnight (or at least 4 hours).

Remove pork from marinade and pat dry with a papertowel. Rub on all sides with your favorite dry rub. Brown on all sides in a medium skillet over medium high heat.

Place in crockpot with onions, wine and chicken stock, and turn crockpot on medium low (mine is the 8 hour setting. Cover, and let it do it’s thing for 6-8 hours.

The meat should be fall off the bone tender when it is done. Literally. The shoulder bone was completely separated when the pork was done cooking. Use two forks to pull the pork apart. Use for anything!

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff August 2, 2010

Thank you for being a friieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend….

Can I just say that I LOVE the Golden Girls? Thank goodness for Netflix. I have them dispersed through my queue so that it’s like a lovely surprise. It’s great to just sit and relax and laugh along with the girls. Jordan and I like to make fun of the outfits and repeat the endless one-liners.

There’s nothing better than the Golden Girls and comfort food. I put this meal in the crockpot before I left for work this morning. While messing with onions and raw meat at 6:30 am turned my stomach a little bit, it was sooooooo worth it when I got home.

I did have an oops with this one. I went to add the 1 1/2 cups sour cream at the end, and discovered we didn’t have any! So instead I added a block of cream cheese. It was amazing. I’ll be making it that way again!

Hey look I actually took a halfway decent picture!

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff
Adapted from Hillbilly Housewife

1 lb stew meat
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 medium onions, sliced into rings
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 cubes beef bullion
8 oz water
2 oz red wine
1 brick cream cheese
1/4 cup flour
Hot cooked egg noodles

Combine meat with 1/2 flour, salt & pepper in crockpot until it’s coated completely. Stir in onions and mushrooms. Add bullion, water and red wine. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Before serving, stir in cream cheese and 1/4 cup flour.

Serve over egg noodles.

Pork Roast Tacos May 5, 2010

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Today is the day where margaritas are on sale at every restaurant that sells so much as a nacho chip and every food blogger cooks something with tortillas or tequila! Not that I’m complaining–seriously what’s wrong with tequila?

The 5th of May, in my family, has always meant Dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Daddy!! There’s an unwritten rule in our house that the birthday person gets to pick the restaurant for dinner, and I always remember going to get Mexican–Banditos in my younger days, then El Camino when they came in to town. Dad LOVES spicy food–chiles rellenos is one of his favorites!

This is old, but cute!

He would have liked this dish–it doesn’t pack much heat, but the spices are definitely there. The pork is seared, then braised for 2 hours in all kinds of deliciousness. My house smelled AMAZING yesterday when I was making this!

Ole!

Pork Roast Tacos
Adapted from My Baking Adventures

Chili Spice Rub–See Below

3lbs pork tenderloin
1 large onion, cut into wedges
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 dried red chiles (or a handful of red pepper flakes)
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp Mexican Hot Chile Powder
Water

Pat pork dry. Rub chili mixture into meat.

Set dutch oven over medium high heat, coat bottom with oil. Sear meat on all sides.

Add onion and garlic to pot and cook until the caramelize. Add tomatoes, chiles, cumin, and chile powder. Add 2 inches of water.

Cover and simmer for 2 hours, adding more liquid as necessary. Mine boiled down quite a bit, keep an eye on it.

Shred meat and serve on tortillas.

Chili Spice Rub
Adapted from 500 Five Ingredient Recipes

1/2 cup Hot Mexican Chili Powder
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt
8 cloves garlic, minced fine

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Rub into meat before cooking.

**Note–Once seared, this could probably be cooked lower and slower in a crockpot, just make sure your meat is cooked thru before serving.

Buffalo Chicken Dip February 20, 2010

I have not been grocery shopping in a LONG time. It had been at least a month and a half. I’m not even kidding. My pantry, fridge, and freezer were all but bare. It was pretty sad. J. and I went to the store today and were there for 2 hours! I’ve never spent that much on groceries before. It was pretty ridiculous. But, it was a pantry restocking trip, most of what we bought will last us awhile, and I have at least 3 weeks of meals planned out right now. Hopefully, my posts will pick up quite a bit!

By the time we got the car unloaded and everything put away (and who are we kidding, the dishes done), we were starving, and both pretty grouchy. We both wanted to veg out in front of the TV for awhile and watch Man VS Food, our latest obsession. That called for some serious snack food.

This is the perfect party dip, by the way. It was actually born out of a dip that my friend asked me to make. She gave me her recipe, but it just didn’t pack enough punch for me. I made a few changes to fit J. and I’s taste, and now we can’t get enough of it. The recipe below is for a Crockpot  for parties. Tonight I just halved it and made it on the stove for the two of us. It’s a pretty versatile recipe!

Definitely not an easy food to photograph!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

4 Chicken Breasts

1 Cup Wing Sauce

1 tsp Worchestershire sauce

3 bricks cream cheese

1/2 cup ranch dressing

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

On the stove, poach the chicken breasts in wing and worchestershire sauce for 10-15 minutes until cooked thru. Remove from pan and shred chicken. Reserve sauce.

In Crockpot, melt cream cheese, ranch, cheddar cheese. Add chicken. Add wing sauce to taste (it should take most of it, but I usually start at half and go from there). Stir until creamy. Keep Crockpot on Warm setting throughout party. Serve with tortilla chips.

The Best Kinds of Days January 15, 2010

Every once in awhile I’m asked to cover a Saturday at work, and in return, I’m given a day off during the week. this was one of those weeks, and today I got to lay around in bed all day. Sure, I could have been doing something productive, but I started reading Angels & Demons yesterday and that’s one of those books that you just can’t put down once you start. This morning, I put a pork roast in the crockpot, and this evening, I finished my book just in time to start the rest of dinner fixins’. Now I’m nursing one glass of wine (just one…sigh…damn migraines), and typing this up before I go up and start my next book. What, you thought I’d take a break or something?

Crockpot Cranberry Pork Roast

Adapted from Beantown Baker

2.5 lb pork roast

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp dijon mustard

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 Tbsp cornstarch

6 oz fresh cranberries (I took mine straight from the freezer, did not seem to cause a problem)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup dried cranberries

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 lemon, thinly sliced

Mix ginger, mustard, salt, pepper, and cornstarch. Coat pork. Place in crockpot.

Put rest of ingredients in crockpot.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4. It will be more tender if you cook it lower and slower.

I served it with Balsamic Glazed Carrots (you’ll see recipe soon) and an adapted form of this gravy. I used cranberry juice instead of apple cider, and rosemary and thyme in the roux.

Crockpot Comfort November 5, 2009

What a long, horrible day. I am a chronic migraine sufferer and have been since middle school. After they put me in the emergency room this year, I finally made an appointment with a great neurologist who specializes in migraines and he put me on some preventative medication that has helped tremendously. And I had to give up caffeine, which was devastating to this coffee addict! I’ve also been seeing a chiropractor once a week to help with the stress on my neck and shoulders–a lot of my migraines start with the tension in that area.

Still, a few times a month I still get migraines, I don’t think you can ever truly be rid of them. Things like stress or weather are my main triggers. Today one hit me sooo hard. It was a miserable day. I couldn’t concentrate, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. Unfortunately, I had to keep working, I’m not one to call in sick.

Not only that, I knew I would have to do a blog post tonight, and I needed a recipe. Which meant I had to make something for dinner. So on my lunch break, I ran home, and threw this in the crockpot. Whoever invented that wonderful appliance deserves a throne. Seriously. Some days there is just nothing better than a crockpot.

I followed the directions on this one. It’s nothing fancy, just comfy, warm soup. It’s not spicy as is, but you could turn up the heat by adding jalepenos instead of red peppers, or using a spicier enchilada sauce than I did. I’ve also seen versions of this with nacho cheese condensed soup instead of cream of chicken, and it’s wonderful like that.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

From realmomkitchen on Tasty Kitchen

1 can Black Beans, rinsed and drained

1 can diced tomatoes (I used fire roasted but I don’t think it made a difference here)

1 10 oz package frozen corn

1/2 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 can enchilada sauce

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 cup milk (Ours was spoiled, ugh, but I had 3/4 pint of heavy cream so I used that instead)

2 whole chicken breasts

1 cup pepper jack cheese, shredded

In Crockpot, combine all ingredients. Cook for 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 on low.

Remove chicken and shred. Put back in soup.

Serve with cheese on top.

Also good with sour cream, cilantro, and tortilla chips.

Note: This makes a ton–I kept some in the fridge for the next few lunches, and then packed the rest in individual freezer containers. Who needs Stouffer’s when you can make your own microwaveable meal?